ART TO CARRY is an intriguing exhibit of books created by artists. Hand-designed and hand-built, each is an expression of the artist’s love of textures and materials, as well as a secret entrance to poetic reflections and narratives.

This is one situation where you can’t judge a book by its cover. The insides and back covers of these little beauties -- not to mention their spines, layers, folds and inserts -- are rich with surprises. The techniques are diverse and unexpected: Xerox copies, photo scans, photographs, drawings and prints are combined with glue, paint, string, collage, varnish and even sand on backgrounds of tissue, watercolour paper, wood, cardboard or construction paper. Many are numbered editions and some contain within them numbered series of prints. They range in scale from palm-size to laptop; some are foldable and the pages often reversible.

ART TO CARRY was curated by Stefani Peter, owner of AION Art Gallery. Stefani has had a passionate affair with artists’ books since 1989. With origins dating back thousands of years to portable manuscripts, artists’ books today are a popular art form in her native Germany and in the United States. As Stefani points out, you can literally take these artworks with you: you can travel with them, feel them, set them up in your hotel room when you stop for the night.

Participating artists come from Germany, Brazil, the United States and Canada. They include Amarie Bergman, Artur, Andrzej Wisniewski, Brenda Bray, Brigitte Potter-Mäl, Denise Carson Wilde, Jacques Clément, Jenny Hsieh (Fischer), Lane Hall, Stacy Wakefield (design director at ARTFORUM and publisher of Evil Twin Publications, NY), Laurie Ljubojevic, Selma Daffré, Siobhan Humston, Stefani Peter and Ulla M. Schoedel.